


The Candidates

by chasing_givenchy



Category: Better Call Saul (TV)
Genre: First Meetings, Gen, Jimmy McGill: Walking Advert for Nepotism, Kim Wexler: Textbook Interview Candidate, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-15
Updated: 2020-12-15
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:02:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28093608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chasing_givenchy/pseuds/chasing_givenchy
Summary: In the early 1990s, Kim and Jimmy interview for the same position at Hamlin, Hamlin & McGill. Her ponytail is tied so tight she might be worried about the circulation to her brain.
Relationships: Jimmy McGill | Saul Goodman/Kim Wexler
Comments: 9
Kudos: 16
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	The Candidates

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Curtashiism](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Curtashiism/gifts).



> HAPPY HOLIDAYS AND EARLY NEW YEAR, YULETIDE RECIPIENT. For the story of how Jimmy and Kim met, I honestly tried to find a scenario where she wouldn't stomp all over him like she would a caterpillar, but I had a hard time picturing it. As a result, we have 1.2k words of Unfiltered Kim Wexler and Jimmy McGill: Master of First Impressions. I hope it comes even a little bit close to what you pictured :)

Nobody should wear a suit to a mailroom interview.

It’s ridiculous.

It’s exactly what Kim has done, but she’s whittled it down to a nice blouse and slacks. The guy sitting in the chair next to her is wearing a _jacket_. Its shoulders are lumpy and the sleeves don’t quite reach his wrists, but it’s tan in colour and it matches his pants.

“Hi,” says its owner, tilting his head just slightly to look Kim in the eye.

She flushes beet red.

“You’ve been, ah, looking at me for the past five minutes.”

Her whole face locks into Defcon 1. Jaw going rigid, eyes narrowing, lips pursing into a thin line.

“It’s okay,” the badly-dressed interviewee continues. “You can look. I have a certain… quality.”

( _Yes_ , it’s Defcon 1. Nobody who hasn’t been run over by a garbage truck would think _5_ is the bad one.)

“Don’t flatter yourself,” she snaps. “You look like Columbo.”

The guy actually _beams_. The visual is like if Thumper went to sleep with a coat hanger in his mouth. Thumper, if Thumper had sandy hair that flopped to one side of his head like a cross between Hugh Grant and a toupee.

Kim is aware that she’s being a tad judgmental. It’s not like she’s interviewing to be chief rocket scientist at Johnson Space Centre. But Hamlin, Hamlin & McGill is where she wants to be. This is going to be her biding time, soaking up knowledge, and coming back to finish her dream. Provided she ends up going to school long enough to take the LSATs.

Provided she gets _this_ job first.

The LSAT is a shaky dream at best when every piece of mail she gets nowadays has a big red stamp on the front.

Kim’s ponytail is tied so tight she might be worried about the circulation to her brain.

The suit-wearing interviewee’s voice slinks, like an unwelcome lounge lizard, into her consciousness:

“Nervous?”

“No.”

“Your fists are clenched.”

To suppress the urge to _deck_ him, but she can’t say that aloud.

She can’t risk some senior associate overhearing and carrying away the impression that Kim Wexler is a hot-blooded criminal in the making. Because she’s not. She’s going to be starched trousers and hair combed away from her face, minimal make-up, and she’s going to lay off the cigarettes. She’s going to project model employee from the second she steps into that interview chamber.

“I wouldn’t overthink it if I were you.”

This guy, he talks out of the corner of his mouth, palming the side of his face like he’s giving her a hot tip. She’s sitting outside someone else’s office, clutching her résumé in a cloudy blue plastic folder. You know what it says? _Waitress, waitress, croupier, PA on cable TV psychic show, waitress_. And she still went to the trouble of aligning the puncher exactly on the sheets of paper and placing it in a file that’s too big for something this worthless.

She could ghostwrite Dale Carnegie’s next book about _overthinking it_.

“Listen,” says Kim, finally turning around in her seat to look her neighbour in the eye. (Technically, he’s her competition, but she doesn’t want to dwell on the thought. All it’ll do is depress her some more.) He blinks back at her with big cow eyes. It throws her for a second.

“Yes…?” he prompts.

 _Blink_ , _blink_.

“Your shirt’s coming untucked,” says Kim. It’s not _Mind your own business_ , no matter how cold her delivery is, and she wants to kick herself.

“Aw, man. I hate it when that happens.” And sitting right there, he leans back and stuffs the hem of his shirt more securely into his pants. Kim should avert her eyes, but he doesn’t even notice. He takes a minute to straighten the cuffs of his suit jacket and smooth over his knees. She expects him to pat down his hair as well, but he takes a fine-toothed comb from inside the jacket, and carefully runs it along his side parting.

“How’s it look?” he asks her. “I don’t have a mirror on me.”

“This is a law office, not a gorilla pen,” she tells him severely in reply. “And you look fine.”

It’s the biggest lie she’s ever told. If there’s a God, she hopes he’s not keeping count.

“Thanks. I kind of need this job.”

She hopes the expression on her face is shrivelling.

“You don’t want to know the string of bad luck that’s brought me to this door.”

 _Typical_ , thinks Kim. Anyone in possession of a pair of nuts they inflate with a balloon pump will think they’re the only ones with a sob story.

“Let me guess,” she says, “you’d be doing time otherwise?”

“Beats being registered as a sex offender, don’cha think?”

Kim flinches so hard she nearly leaps out of her chair.

“No, wait, I’m actually not!” protests the creep quickly. “I didn’t _do_ anything. The only thing involved was a car—”

“ _Don’t_.” The word squeezes out through gritted teeth. “I don’t want to know.”

“Would you believe me if I said it was a funny story?”

For a second—just a second—the sheepishness is gone from his face. The corner of his mouth curves up, and it’s not Thumper she’s looking at anymore. He looks… He looks almost _pleased_ with himself.

Triumphant.

“I think,” says Kim slowly, “that whatever happened, is between you and that tailpipe.”

Her heart, she realises, is hammering. It has _nothing_ , absolutely _nothing_ , to do with the way he’s doubled over, howling with laughter.

“What is wrong with you?” she asks. She can hear the hollow wonder in her own voice. It’s actually a legitimate question.

The door to the HR office swings opens and a smiling young assistant steps out.

“Kim?”

His tie alone is more put-together than her entire outfit. It turns out that ‘neatly dressed’ and ‘clean’ is nothing compared to a snipped-off price tag. She steps over the still laughing interviewee, whom the assistant is pretending not to notice.

The interview pool has thinned out over the course of the morning. Maybe it’s because her name is a _W_. Maybe the job market is high school gym class all over again, but this time with day drinking. Whatever it is, the assistant gives her a significant look, like he’s signalling that she might have a favourable chance.

Maybe it paid off to attach a personal statement with her résumé, in which she describes the impact of the McCann Erickson ruling on arbitration seats in foreign countries. She stitched it together from several library books and a lengthy interview with Chuck McGill, and it probably wouldn’t pass muster in a 1L classroom. But it shows that she cares.

Then the assistant’s gaze slips and falls to where her skirt skims her bare legs, and Kim thinks:

 _Who’s the cow now_?

“Hey,” calls out the other guy from behind her. “Good luck in there.”

Her shoulders are straight like a battering ram, and she doesn’t look back.


End file.
